


Beyond Breaking Points

by MissMandalore



Series: Freyja "Ace" Cunningham [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 18:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10196444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMandalore/pseuds/MissMandalore
Summary: After being abandoned by Maul, Ace is reunited with her old friend Ahsoka Tano. Yet, she still has to cope with her massive traumata and the realisation, that a heart can be lost all too easily...





	

It was cold outside when Ace left the small cottage. Shili was beautiful. How could she not have seen that when she first woke up?  
Five years in Carbonite had left their marks...  
It had taken her almost a two days to completely recover but her coma wasn't what had been on her mind in the first place.  
Ace had spent another five years of her life as the apprentice of Maul, former lord of the Sith. She had embraced the dark side to seek revenge...  
Revenge on the Emperor.  
The memories still haunted her. Fives... Dying in her arms...  
He had left her empty. An emptiness soon filled with hate and a burning desire to let the whole galaxy feel her pain.  
Ace remembered how during the war she had despised bounty hunters. How dumb she had been...  
Phantom, that was how they had called her. A phantom, merciless, heartless...  
But Ace had a heart. She wasn't merciless.  
She just hadn't cared anymore...  
Her heart had been broken, shattered into a billion pieces. She had been vulnerable. So vulnerable...  
Traumatized and unaware of the dangers the Galaxy held for her. Bad decision had followed after bad decision. Soon, she had gathered some of the most infamous  
mercenaries. Ace had...  
She sighed and sat down in the rough sand.  
She had killed and tortured and abused and let herself be abused, over and over again, just to feel a damn thing!  
It was unforgivable!  
Yet Ahsoka was still with her...  
Ahsoka, the woman who she had known as a girl for so long, who Ace had presumed dead after Order 66... But here she was, strong, fierce, protective...  
And it seemed like she actually had forgiven her...  
If that was even possible.  
Ahsoka had done so much... So much Ace didn't deserve...  
Why did she still care about about her?  
Yes, Ace was thankful, but that didn't mean she understood.  
Maybe... Maybe the girl she once had been would have...  
Ace was Ahsoka's last living friend whom she had served in the clone wars with. Maybe she thought she could somehow... save her...  
Although Ace knew that nothing could ever save her.  
The things she had done were unforgivable. Nothing could ever outweigh any of them...  
But still, she didn't leave her...  
Ace didn't know how often she had insulted her. Talked down on her. And yet, Ahsoka hadn't left.  
If she'd been in her place, Ace was sure to have left the person who treated her like that long ago.  
What was it that made her stay?  
A stupid hope? The possibility that Ace, the Clone Sister might still be somewhere inside her?  
No.  
She was Ace the Phantom now...  
The bounty hunter...  
The one who only sought revenge...  
Everything, everyone that had made her everything she'd been was gone now.  
Dead.  
Destroyed.  
What did she still see in her?  
There was nothing left...  
Yet, Ahsoka's behavior made her... feel comfortable...  
Safe...  
Cared for, yes, important...  
It was a feeling that Ace hadn't felt in a long time. Not since Fives' death...  
She had been traumatized before but when he died in her arms, something inside Ace had broken.  
The girl she once was, before she had left her home planet, would never have bound herself to a man like Ace had done with Fives. But after the accident...  
Fives had made her feel beautiful again. Strong. Fierce...  
She knew that she would never stop loving him. It would never be any less painful...  
But somehow, during the months she'd spent with Ahsoka, those feelings seemed easier to bear. Ahsoka was so full of light, so... wonderful...  
The realization hit her harder than she'd ever thought it was possible.  
The feelings she felt towards Ahsoka went a lot deeper than simple friendship. It was more than thankfulness, more than...  
It was... Love...  
Ace was in love with her...

The next couple of days she was in denial.  
She could not possibly have fallen in love with her. Ahsoka was her friend and she also was a Jedi. There was no way anything could work out between the two of them, even if she did return her feelings.  
It was frustrating.  
Not only was Aces's life a mess, her love life was too... First she had lost Fives to a conspiracy before falling for Maul and being left to die but now... she couldn't help but feel the same thing for Ahsoka...  
Although Ace was sure that Ahsoka wasn't able to hurt her like that, she was anxious about this feeling by now...  
Love was a cruelty...  
Could she afford to let her heart be bound to someone again?  
Also, it felt like a betrayal to their friendship. Ace would have brought down heaven and hell for Ahsoka before, she didn't want her to think that it was only because her hormones ran wild.  
Yet, even to look at her took Ace's breath away.  
Ahsoka had always been beautiful but now she was... stunning...  
Even more, her presence in the Force felt like a wildfire.  
Ace almost wished that she had never learned to feel these things... She had immense powers, but she also had to deal with her intensified feelings for Ahsoka. And she wasn't sure if she was able to do so...  
The time she had spent with Ahsoka wasn't anything like the years with Maul. No darkness, lust or manipulation. But although there was no more darkness around her, she could still feel it in her heart. It did not control her anymore, yet she could still feel it. The loss. The weight if the things, unspeakable things she had done under Maul's influence.  
No...  
It wasn't just Maul's influence. He had never forced her to do anything...  
He might have lured her to the dark side, yes, but Ace had gladly followed his lead. Was there really a chance to ever be forgiven?  
Maybe she would eventually learn to find peace with her past, though she knew that she could never forgive herself.  
Ace missed the old days. It almost felt surreal that there had ever been a time that she lived without regret. Although the war had destroyed her, she couldn't deny that she missed how easy her life had been... of course, easy wasn't quite the right word. But she had always known what to do. Which side to pick. Who to follow. Who to trust. There had always been... guidance.  
She'd had Fives to keep her broken self together...  
But that was years ago and the galaxy did a great job to either forget or ignore the clone wars and their aftermath. If Ace only could do the same...  
Yet it was undeniable that Ahsoka had helped her overcome the worst of her trauma. Not that she didn't have panic attacks behind closed doors anymore or woke up screaming from the nightmares, but she had been able to gain some sort of distance.  
Maul's methods hadn't allowed this. The darkness was nurtured by hate, fear, anger and suffering. Her pain, paired with her mental and physical strength, had made her the perfect student, the perfect vessel to breed a Sith. She wasn't strong in the Force, by all means, but the intensity of her trauma had made up for it.  
Ace did not want to imagine what she could have become...  
Now, after overcoming the darkness, Ace felt stronger than before. It still was a part of her, yet not more than that. She felt like she had understood something. Something she had known before but never embraced. She understood her feelings, how she was affected by them and how she might be able to gain control over them. She finally understood what Anakin and Obi-Wan had always talked about. The inner peace of a Jedi.  
And although Ace was far from being a Jedi or even like a Jedi, she could never achieve anything similar to their level of... what was it? Peace? Tranquility? She still knew that she had made an important step on her way to a better future.  
And it was Ahsoka who deserved this credit most... 

Weeks passed.  
Ahsoka and Ace left Shili behind, wandered off through the galaxy.  
Although she hadn't said anything like it, Ace was sure that Ahsoka wanted to show her everything through this new perspective. She really cared about her...  
Ace still tried to compensate her feelings. Should she be open about them? Didn't Ahsoka deserve to know what Ace felt for her?  
If it only wasn't so damn hard...  
No amount of training, no amount of knowledge or wisdom would ever make her overcome the fear of loosing Ahsoka too. The fear of loss and failure had always been Ace's deepest and darkest fears but since... it only had intensified.  
She could not bring up the courage to admit her feelings...  
Even though Ace didn't really care anymore whether Ahsoka returned her feelings or not, the irrational fear of leaving her to feel betrayed remained. She couldn't bear the thought of doing this to Ahsoka.  
Yet, Ace couldn't help but worry about what could happen everyday.  
If one of them got injured, died... could she ever forgive herself to not have been honest with the woman she loved? The only one in the entire galaxy she trusted?  
The answer was simple.  
No.  
She could not. 

The sun was about to set when Ahsoka exited the small freighter Ace had stolen a few weeks ago and sat beside her on the grass.  
They had sought refuge on a small planet in the outer rim. A farming world, although the nature was mostly untouched. From their hill that peeked out of a light forest they had a great view at the coastline, only about three miles away.  
"You've been distant lately" Ahsoka said and laid a hand upon Ace's shoulder.  
Ace almost shrieked as she felt her warm fingers on her bare skin. Though she managed to remain a calm attitude.  
She put the lightsabers she'd been working with aside and looked up into this incredibly beautiful face.  
"I'm sorry, Ahsoka..."  
Ahsoka only smiled.  
"There is nothing you need to apologise for. Taking some time for yourself is..."  
"No" Ace interrupted her.  
"That wasn't what I meant.  
Ahsoka frowned.  
"What is it then?"  
"I am sorry for everything you went through because of me..."  
Ace closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She couldn't help but lean into Ahsoka's touch...  
"My behaviour... I feel ashamed of the way I treated you. You gave me back my life, a sense to it and I... If I only could turn back the time..."  
Her own words seemed to choke her. If she only could turn back the time... how far would she go?  
To this awful moment Ahsoka had freed her from the carbonite?  
The memory was still fresh, a sudden flash of heat, something in the air that had filled her lungs and made her feel like she had breathed in the tattooinean desert. Noise, all around her but no light. Only darkness. Ace had been too outraged to recognise Ahsoka... Yet she remembered the wave of emotions that had hit her. Fear, surprise, the inability to understand, to comprehend how Ace was not Ace.  
Or would she go further?  
To the moment she had decided to disobey Maul's command and went off to Zygerria?  
Even now, months, no... years later, Ace still believed that her revolt might have worked out...  
Would she go back to the day she had met Maul on Mandalore?  
She could have killed him right there...  
He had been her bounty, worth a fortune any hunter could only wish to dream about. She'd been there, blaster at his forehead, ready to pull the trigger. But she had not done it. She had sensed his power. Listened to his words. Went with him...  
There were so many events she would give her life to change. But right now...  
No.  
She needed to focus.  
"I know there is no apology that could possibly ever outweigh anything. Yet, you stood with me and there are no words that describe how thankful I am... I feel ashamed that I could not see this earlier."  
Ace felt how a slight blush crept on her face.  
Ahsoka's hand on her shoulder wasn't very helpful to her attempt to remain a calm attitude, even more, she was as nervous as a little girl, trying to talk to her first crush.  
"Ahsoka... You've done so much to help me, to bring me back from the path I was stuck on. You did not have to do it, yet there was not a day you haven't been by my side and I... I am more than thankful..."  
She took a deep breath, laid her own hand on Ahsoka's and finally looked back into her blue eyes. So beautiful...  
They seemed to stare directly into her soul. Yet, there was something incredibly warm in this look. Something that made Ace feel strong and loved, even though Ahsoka seemed to be taken aback, surprised, maybe even...  
"I was reluctant to admit my feelings Ahsoka. At first I did not really understand them myself... but now I can't deny them any longer. Please understand that I do not want to pressure you to do or feel anything. I don't hope for you to feel the way I do. And I know that even if you did, there could never be anything between the two of us. The Jedi way does not allow attachments, I accept this. But I feel that after everything you've done... I feel that you deserve to know... that I am in love with you Ahsoka Tano."  
Ace felt like the weight of the world was taken off her shoulders.  
Yet, she was taken aback by Ahsoka's reaction.  
To be honest, she had not known what to expect, her major concern had been the confession itself. But what she certainly hadn't expected was for Ahsoka to blush, lean into her and take her face into both hands.  
Ace couldn't breathe. Her heart almost skipped a beat as Ahsoka bit her lower lip, cracking a relieved, almost a little seducing smile.  
"Well then" she whispered, her voice slightly deeper that usual.  
"Good thing I am not a Jedi"  
She leaned closer, so close Ace could feel her warm breath on her skin. Her heart was racing now. A little closer and it would most likely jump out of her chest. Then, after what felt like an eternity, their lips finally touched.  
Ace closed her eyes and drowned in the feeling.  
The kiss was slow and tender at first, but Ahsoka gained confidence fast.  
Her lips were so unbelievably soft, so full... it felt incredible to kiss her, nothing like Ace could ever have imagined...  
All too soon the kiss broke and left both of them absolutely breathless.  
Ahsoka giggled like a little girl.  
Ace needed a moment to comprehend what had happened before she joined in.  
She still couldn't believe that she really had... kissed her... that Ahsoka returned her feelings...  
Yet the best part was how she felt her in the Force. Ahsoka did not only return Ace's feelings, she felt the exact same thing. The same nervousness, the same excitement.  
"That was..." she started but Ahsoka interrupted her.  
"Overdue?"  
Ace smiled and instead of answering, she kissed her again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, it really means a lot! <3  
> Constructive criticism is highly appreciated :)


End file.
